“Does Chronic Insomnia Lead to Accumulation of Beta Amyloid?” Philip Gehrman, PhD’s pilot study, will measure beta amyloid and other metabolites in five individuals with chronic insomnia and compare them to five good sleepers. Dr. Gehrman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, says that the results of the study may help investigators understand how chronic poor sleep may increase the risk for dementia, and inform the development of interventions designed to reduce the likelihood of dementia.

David R. Roalf, PhD, a Research Associate at the the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, will be focusing on early indicators and detection of cognitive impairments. His pilot study, “Within-individual Variability as a Biomarker of Incipient Dementia in Mild Cognitive Impairment,” will measure neurocognitive variability in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment and healthy aging to better understand the utility of the fluctuations in neurocognitive ability as an indicator of neurological integrity and its viability as an early indicator of cognitive impairment in MCI.